Gem Comrie, a nurse on Emory University Hospital’s transplant unit (7G), has been awarded the DAISY Award, a national recognition program for nurses. Rommel Buenvenida, also a nurse on 7G, received a DAISY Award nomination. Their unit director, Tiffany Banks, recently commended them for their exemplary service to transplant patients. They both have earned credentials as certified clinical transplant nurses from the American Board for Transplant Certification.

“The DAISY Award is a national award bestowed upon extraordinary nurses who provide optimum care to the patients they serve,” says Banks. “Gem is a sensational transplant nurse who takes pride in her work and profession. I am extremely proud of both Gem and Rommel, since they represent the core of who we all are as Emory nurses.”

The DAISY Award — the acronym stands for Diseases Attacking the Immune SYstem Award — is a program started by the DAISY Foundation in 2000 by the family of Patrick Barnes who died at age 33 from complications of idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), an autoimmune disease. The family, incredibly impressed by the exemplary nurses who cared for him, developed award programs to honor and celebrate direct-care nurses, nursing faculty and nursing students from across the globe. The DAISY Award programs partner with organizations to provide recognition of nurses’ clinical skills and compassion to patients and families. The programs are tailored to each hospital’s unique culture and values, providing resources to help implement the awards.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for Emory Transplant Center’s live web chat on the topic of organ donation. With April serving as Donate Life month, we wanted to raise awareness around organ donation and answer your specific questions. Lead Transplant Coordinator, Sharon Mathews, MS, RN, CPTC, answered questions about organ donation, including how many people are currently waiting for an organ, what organs can be donated, and who can donate. She also discussed Emory Transplant Center’s living donor and paired donor exchange programs.

Below are just a few highlights from the chat. If you missed this informative chat, check out the full list of questions and answers located on our chat transcript. You may also visit the Emory Transplant Center website for more information. And for more information on how to become an organ donor, visit donatelife.net.

Question: How long can an organ stay viable during transport?

Sharon Mathews: For solid organs, heart and lungs are viable for 4-6 hours, livers up to 12 hours, the pancreas is viable for 12-18 hours and kidneys remain viable up to 24- 30 hours on ice. The goal is to transplant the organs within 8 hours or less of being recovered.

Question: Do you have to be on kidney dialysis before you can be put on the wait list for a kidney?

Sharon Mathews: No, if you have been referred to a transplant center and are undergoing evaluation for transplant, you can have potential living donors call in on your behalf. The initial screening tests can be done at this point in the process. However, you will not become active on the UNOS wait list until your kidney function meets protocol for transplantation.

Sharon Mathews: At Emory we are involved with the National Kidney Registry (a paired donor exchange program). In a paired exchange, a donor will donate their kidney to another recipient in exchange for a compatible kidney for their loved one. This can occur on the same day. So while they didn’t walk away with your kidney, they received a kidney that was the best match donor possible.

Currently more than 115,000 men, women and children are awaiting a life-saving transplant. They are in need of organs, tissue, and bone marrow which can all be transplanted if donors were available, giving recipients a second chance at life. Perhaps the most important message from the live chat is the one on the importance of organ donation and how it can have a huge impact on people’s lives.

The Emory Transplant Center loves to share heartwarming stories that happen right here in our Center. As we celebrate Donate Life month, we would like to honor those who have graciously made the decision to give the gift life. Former Marine, Temple Jeffords, is one of those individuals. He made the decision to donate one of his kidneys to help out a fellow serviceman.

It all started with a plea for help via social media. Suffering with Stage 4 kidney disease, 28-year-old Dustin Brown, Army National Guardsman, relied on dialysis machines to rid his body of waste, salt and water that his failing kidneys could no longer do. Doctors told him a kidney transplant was needed.

Dustin connected with Kristi and Raleigh Callaway. Raleigh Callaway, a Greensboro, Georgia, police officer, received a new kidney in 2014 following a Facebook post publicly appealing for help.

Soon Brown, posing with his wife and five-year-old son, had a similar Facebook post on the Callaway’s page, desperately searching for a new kidney.

Former Marine, Temple Jeffords, saw the plea for help and contacted Kristi Callaway and the Emory Kidney Transplant Program. A few weeks later, 44-year-old Jeffords learned he was a match for Brown.

“I have never thought about donating a kidney to anyone, but when I saw another serviceman’s need for help, I wanted to help,” says Jeffords. “The testing and donating processes are simple.”

“Living donor kidney transplants, such as this one, make the wait times shorter for critically-ill patients, while also providing the greatest chances for long-term success,” says Nicole Turgeon, MD, surgical director of the Paired Donor Kidney Exchange Program at Emory Transplant Center.

“I am so thankful for Temple,” said Brown, just days after his kidney transplant surgery. “Brothers in arms are always brothers, no matter what. He is a super hero in our family.”

National Heart Month would not be complete without Heart to Heart, Emory Transplant Center‘s annual fete for heart transplant recipients and candidates, which was on Feb. 20 at the Miller-Ward Alumni House. Sixty heart transplant recipients and eight patients waiting on the heart transplant list — all supported by their family members — celebrated life during the 27th annual Heart to Heart.

The celebrants were at Heart to Heart to show gratitude for their renewed lives made possible by their organ donor families. Each year, the event draws the newest heart transplant patients as well as those who have had their new heart for many years. Three recipients, Earnest Mitchell, Stephanie Harmon and Herbert Kuper were on hand to honor their organ donor families for their lifesaving gifts and meet up with many of their caregivers during the transplant process.

“I give honor and praise daily to my heart donor and his family,” says Mitchell, who was with his wife, Rhonda — newlyweds, really, since they married in 2014. “This date will always be bittersweet, because we understand that this time of celebration for us will always be a time of remembrance for them.”

Mitchell, a Stockbridge resident, is celebrating his one-and-a-half-year anniversary with his new heart. He is pictured above with transplant cardiologist, Rob Cole, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine. After being diagnosed with heart disease in 2006 and then congestive heart failure in 2009, Mitchell and his wife began investigating treatment options for his weak heart. Little did they know that a heart transplant would be his only option for survival.

Mitchell was admitted to Emory University Hospital’s coronary care unit (CCU) for constant monitoring and medication to keep his heart functioning while he waited for his new heart. After 139 days in the CCU, he learned a heart was available. He received his transplant on Aug. 15, 2014.

Stephanie Harmon, from Summerville, Ga., received her new heart in Dec. 2015. A surgical first assistant in a Floyd County hospital, Harmon developed breathing problems after an illness in Dec. 2013. An emergency room doctor diagnosed her with heart failure and she was sent by life-flight to Emory Saint Joseph’s Hospital, where she spent the next two months hospitalized. She went home with an Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD), a surgically implanted, battery-operated, mechanical pump that sent blood coursing throughout her body.

Eighteen months later, on Dec. 19, 2015, Harmon received the call from the Emory Transplant Center that a heart was available. “I couldn’t believe it, I was in total shock and I couldn’t move,” says Harmon. “My husband instantly started packing our bags.”

Three month after receiving her new heart, Harmon is doing well. Although it is still too early for her to reach out to her donor family, she is very appreciative of the life-saving gift she received.

South African native turned Atlanta resident, Herbert Kuper, developed an abnormal heart rhythm after knee replacement surgery. Doctors determined he had cardiac amyloidosis, or stiff heart syndrome, where clumps of proteins called amyloids take the place of normal heart muscle.

Kuper was placed on the heart transplant list, and received his new heart on Feb. 16, 2015. One year later, he is doing well.

“I am so grateful for my heart donor and family,” he reports. “I am also very appreciative of the amazing doctors and nursing staff at Emory University Hospital and Emory Saint Joseph’s Hospital that cared for me while I was so sick.”

According to Dr. Cole, “As a heart failure and heart transplant specialist, it is important to celebrate the new lives of our patients each year because of a precious gift they received. It also is important to honor those families who gave selflessly at a time of tragedy for them.”

April serves as National Donate Life month – raising awareness around organ donation and celebrating those who have given the precious gift of life to another. Currently more than 115,000 men, women and children are awaiting a life saving transplant. They are in need of organs, tissue, and bone marrow which can all be transplanted if donors were available, giving recipients a second chance at life. Understandably, potential donors may have reservations about organ donation.

To get the facts and learn more about organ donation, join Sharon Mathews, MS, RN, CPTC, of the Emory Transplant Center for a live chat on Tuesday, April 12th from Noon – 1PM. She will answer all of your questions about organ donation, including how many people are currently waiting for an organ, what organs can be donated, and who can donate. She will also discuss Emory Transplant Center’s living donor and paired donor exchange programs.

Emory is nationally renowned for using a multidisciplinary approach to treat cancer. But many may not know there is a multidisciplinary team right here at the Emory Transplant Center with the mission of improving survival rates for liver cancer. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a form of liver cancer. It accounts for most liver cancers and is among the fastest rising cancers in the U.S. According to the National Cancer Institute, liver cancer is the third leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide and the seventh leading cause of cancer deaths in this country. For patients with early-stage primary HCC, liver transplantation may be their best chance of survival.

“Data here [at the Emory Transplant Center] and at other major academic transplant centers are showing that the five-year survival rate for patients with early-stage HCC and cirrhosis who receive a liver transplant is 75%, but only about 25-30% without a transplant”, says Dr. Anjana Pillai, a transplant hepatologist and the Medical Director of the Liver Tumor Clinic at Emory University Hospital.

Emory opened the multidisciplinary Liver Tumor Clinic, the only program of its kind in the state, in May 2013. It consists of a team of transplant hepatologists, liver transplant surgeons, interventional radiologists, midlevel professionals, palliative oncologists, medical oncologists and others who help personalize treatments depending on patients’ individual needs. Emory Transplant Center hepatologists serve as care coordinators for liver cancer/tumor patients. The reason transplant hepatologists are well suited to coordinate care for this population is they treat on a daily basis patients with chronic liver disease, liver failure and those requiring liver transplants.

“It’s a great group of people — the team takes each case step-by-step and determines the course that is best for each patient and family,” remarks Dr. Pillai.

It is better to treat patients with early-stage HCC with transplantation. According to OPTN/UNOS statistics, about 1,300 liver transplants were performed for liver cancer patients in the U.S. in 2012.

According to Dr. Thomas Pearson, Emory Transplant Center Executive Director, “The liver transplant program exemplifies multidisciplinary team management for this growing patient population, and their efforts are showing promising results. According to transplant center reports released by the SRTR [Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients] in June and December 2015, the Emory liver transplant program’s one-month, one-year and three-year patient and graft survival rates are the highest they have ever been since SRTR began publishing data in November 2001 [cohort: 7/1/1995-6/30/1999]. I’m really proud of how far the team has come, and I’m excited to see what the future holds for a liver cancer patient population that is managed by our multidisciplinary team of transplant hepatologists and surgeons, interventional radiologists, medical oncologists, palliative oncologists, and advanced practice providers.”

A study of kidney transplant recipients has shown for the first time that the drug belatacept (Nulojix), which controls the immune system and prevents graft rejection, has a better record of patient and organ survival than a calcineurin inhibitor, the current standard of care.

Patients who have undergone kidney transplant are required to take medications to prevent their immune systems from rejecting their new organs. A calcineurin inhibitor (CNIs) is generally used for post kidney transplant patients, but long-term use can damage transplanted kidneys and may lead to cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

Belatacept acts as a “co-stimulation blocker,” inhibiting one of two signals the T cells need to trigger an immune response. And unlike the currently used CNIs, it is not toxic to the kidney. In fact, it helps preserve the function of the kidney over the long term and is more effective in suppressing antibodies against the kidney, which are important causes of organ loss.

Emory University School of Medicine Dean and kidney and pancreas transplant surgeon, Dr. Christian Larsen, played a key role in developing belatacept, together with Emory Transplant Center Executive Director and Livingston Professor of Surgery, Dr. Thomas Pearson. Belatacept was approved by the FDA in 2011 and is produced by Bristol Myers Squibb.

The study, called BENEFIT (Belatacept Evaluation of Nephroprotection and Efficacy as First-line Immunosuppression Trial), was sponsored by Bristol-Myers Squibb and began in 2006. FDA approval of belatacept in 2011 was partly based on the first three years of results. Results from the worldwide study, led by Dr. Larsen and University of California San Francisco kidney transplant surgeon, Dr. Flavio Vincenti, were published in the Jan. 28 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

The seven-year, multi-center study showed that kidney transplant recipients taking belatacept experienced a rate of mortality and graft loss significantly lower than patients taking a CNI-based regimen. The risk of death or loss of the transplanted kidney after seven years was 12.7 percent for belatacept, compared to 21.7 percent for cyclosporine A.
“While the best uses of belatacept still need additional definition, these results indicate that using belatacept as standard of care has the potential to improve long-term outcomes that matter to patients,” says Dr. Larsen.

Belatacept is given by infusion monthly at a doctor’s office, in contrast to CNIs, which are taken in daily pills at home. Many U.S. insurance companies now cover belatacept as medically necessary for kidney transplant patients.

No matter what your religious beliefs or cultural background, the holidays are a time to reflect on our extraordinary blessings and appreciate the love in our lives as we spend time with family and friends. The Emory Transplant Center has so much to be grateful for this season: our skilled faculty and staff, the excellence of our world-class transplant facilities, the satisfaction of helping our transplant patients, and most importantly, our donor families who have given the gift of life.

Without a doubt the Emory Transplant Center is one of the busiest transplant centers in the country, offering hundreds of patients in this area a chance at renewed lives. This only occurs through the benefits of organ transplantation each year. Without the selfless acts of kindness from donors and donor families, we wouldn’t have the wonderful stories of hope that we have every day. Please take a moment from your busy schedules this holiday season to salute these kind gifts.

Make your wishes known to your family and sign a donor card to become an organ donor.

Fox 5 Atlanta’s health reporter, Beth Galvin, started a chain of her own this past June when she donated her kidney at Emory Transplant Center for kidney transplant. In her two decades as a TV reporter, she saw many patients with end-stage renal disease on dialysis, and she wanted to help. She also was inspired by a story she covered in 2013 on Fox 5 about Chamblee Assistant Police Chief Mike Beller, a father of five who donated his kidney at Emory University Hospital (EUH). Galvin took a few weeks off from work and donated her own kidney at EUH last summer. Dr. Nicole Turgeon, Surgical Director of the Paired Donor Exchange Program, was her surgeon.

Galvin told her story at the October 24th Atlanta Trends in Transplant conference, hosted by Georgia Transplant Foundation. “I never expected the donor journey to be so emotional and spiritual,” she wrote on her Facebook page before her speaking engagement. “I began the process because I felt my inner compass was pointing me in this direction. Then, I stuck with it because I kept seeing signs I was on the right path.”

Galvin’s donated kidney was flown to the University of California at Los Angeles, where it transformed the life of a 41-year-old man on the waitlist there. He is a married father of two children and a volunteer baseball and softball coach. This was his second kidney transplant, which has saved him from the rigors of 4 a.m. dialysis before going to work. Galvin was one of six donors in a chain facilitated by the National Kidney Registry that ended up with six recipients who received new kidneys across the country.

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